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Galaxian's Spicy January Writing
Do not expect quality out of this page. Or much content, to be honest. Not to sound too greedy, but any frequent support would be very appreciated xD! Did I say edge? Get ready for eDgE 'January 1 - "Everything is More Than It Seems" Part I' (I'm just writing whatever. This is a small continuation to the Rogue RP. Hold on, I'll write it somewhere else and paste it because this page keeps reloading and we don't want me to smash my computer.) What Tsukiakari was trying to tell him: Please stop punching the wall. Rai used his other arm to punch the wall, getting past the block on his left arm. “Oh my gosh, Smirkster,” Tsukiakari groaned. “Could you be any more uncooperative?” Before he could show her what his uncooperative meant, she quickly added, “Please don’t.” She took both of his hands and held them with her cold ones. They were enough to make shocks of pain vibrate throughout his hands. His plan foiled for the time being, he gave a small glance downwards. Blood was there, alright, a small stream of it from the pressure points of his knuckles. His left hand was more bloodied than the right; after all, he’d punched with it three times, all brutally. However, the exact source of the injuries were nowhere to be seen. He crumpled down against the wall, grinding his back as hard as he could against the wall’s material, in an attempt to feel anything except for the numbness he had inside. It didn’t work, as an echo of his inner pain cried out inside himself again. The girl bent down along with him, her arms now mostly resting on her bent knees. He bent his own knees towards himself. He briefly remembered moments of his fleeting youth, whenever he was unhappy. He had never liked to drag others into his pain. He always relied on the corner of whatever room he was in, as if curling up and not seeing the world would make the world not see him. He had thought fighting the same world would mean he could win. Just like if he screamed out in distress right now, no one would care. Not even himself. Perhaps Tsukiakari would. She was always so kind. Too kind, sometimes, to the point he didn’t know how to receive it. “The toast is burning,” he muttered. “And the kids are running away,” she replied. Oh, was this a game now? “They’re older than you.” He sounded harsher than he wanted. “They don’t understand as much as you do.” He repeated, “The toast is burning.” “So let it burn.” She peered at him with her placid silver eyes full of calm and tranquility, softer than they usually were. “You’re more important, Rai.” “No, I’m not,” he denied roughly. He turned his metallic eyes, too worn out and too dulled over, to the side. “I’m not important to anyone. I shouldn’t be.” “Rai—" “I shouldn’t be!” He jumped up, yanking his hands away from hers. “I never wanted to be after all that happened!” She tried to say his name again, but he turned away. “You don’t deserve this,” he finally said. “Any of this bullcrap I’m experiencing.” His voice rose. “Maybe I deserve it, but why didn’t they just let me die? I thought death was the worst thing that could happen to anyone, but I was wrong!” “Calm down, please—" He paused, remembering a talk he had had with her about “Calm down” never working. No, not just with her. They had taken it to the gang, and made each other promise that if someone in the gang told a consociation member to calm down, they had to do just that. No exploits. He had almost forgotten. 'January 2 - "Everything is More Than It Seems" Part II' He took a long, labored breath. “Fine,” he finally said. “I’m calm now. But you can’t make me do anything else.” “You sound like a kid my age,” she noted. “No duh, that’s my mental age.” Remembering she was actually twelve, he added, “Nine.” “A sassy kid my age,” she clarified, somehow still sounding nice. “Right.” Tsukiakari sighed slightly. A win for him. “Alright…something happened, didn’t it? With whatever you were doing? With those kids?” She struggled to stand up, as well, to her credit, not giving a look to the burning smell in the air. “Right. Talking.” “What were you talking about?” Give it to her to find the problem right away. “Stuff.” “What kind of stuff?” “Stuff that’s a trigger for me.” She sighed again. Two wins. “Rai, specifics, please.” “I am being specific.” He indicated the stress on the singular word with a slight change of tone. She shook her head. “What do you want me to say, then?” he demanded quietly, crossing his arms, like he could build a barrier up to her concern for his state of mind, or even the initial silence building up between them. “I understand why you don’t want to talk about it,” she finally said, not looking directly at him and pinning him in place with her gaze. Not that it mattered, anyways; he was trapping himself in his own place in the first place. “Calmness is hard to achieve, and…” she nearly trailed off, but came back strong again. “…since it’s a trigger for you, then, you wouldn’t want to talk about it again. With anybody, I mean.” He appreciated her using the word “since” instead of “if” so much more than he cared to show. Outwardly, though, he showed no reaction, or any indication that he wanted to show one at all. “But,” she continued with her own sort of fervor, “you…need…” She seemed to be struggling to put her thoughts into words. “You need…help. With whatever your thoughts have been. You’re usually so calm, Rai, or you appear to be, but you’re not really that way inside…you…well, I hate to say ‘pretend’…but, uh, that’s what you do. You pretend. You’re so good at it that it becomes a lie for not only others, but yourself. You basically trick yourself, and I think that’s sad—that you have to pretend you’re the eye of some storm of the past when you’re actually the wall." Somewhere inside himself, he thought that Hitan would have approved of that comparison. “But the thing is…” she started with more courage. “We shouldn’t lie to ourselves, even if it benefits us in the short run.” The short run? He hadn’t heard it phrased that way before. She stopped there, apparently waiting for his reaction. His limited senses were being overwhelmed by the burning scent in the air, to the point he felt like there was charred ash lathered over his tongue. Maybe he could use that as the excuse for him not speaking—that the smell would overwhelm him and choke him up if he tried to talk. 'January 3 - "Everything is More Than It Seems" Part III' She finally sighed. “You’re so stubborn.” “As are you,” he said. Coughing, he asked, “Could you please deal with the burning bread? Cosmic’s going to come a’running and presume there’s a fire.” She gave him a pointed look, but realizing he was right, retreated. He considered bolting before she could give him a TED talk, but realized she could fly without wings, so decided against it. Besides, she was coming over with a pan, and he really didn’t need that in his life. Or on his head, even if on accident. Yeah. “Does it still look edible?” she asked entirely innocently. From what Rai could tell, it was a flattened piece of charcoal. “Suure. Yeah.” She rolled her eyes, though it was hard to tell, since she closed them at the same time. “Riiiight. Yeaahh,” she imitated him. She actually sounded pretty close. He had to smirk at that, feeling like some weight was temporarily floating off of his chest and back, some of that suffocating weight that always tried to bind him together so parts of his inner self wouldn’t go floating, but also placed so much pressure on him to feel normal at all. She huffed and got up to toss the char across the room. “Wait, wait,” he protested, feeling a bit of his usual self come back to him. “That’s still edible. For me. I mean it. Give me it.” He added, “Please.” “I’ve never heard anyone be so polite for a crisp, burnt piece of toast.” “No actually. Please give me it,” Rai said. “I haven’t eaten. Unhealthily. In a while.” She noticed the unnatural ends in his sentence, and her panic showed on her face as she paled even more than she already was. “You haven’t eaten?!” “No, no, I said I haven’t eaten. Unhealthily—" “You haven’t eaten!” That was the loudest Tsukiakari ever got—when someone didn’t eat. “I’ll get you a meal!” Knowing her “hunger meals” were gourmet meals and that he wouldn’t be able to walk after she forced him to eat every single morsel, he just ran for it as soon as she turned her back and started running into the deeper kitchen. How did a “You’re not okay” talk turn into this? Well, he didn’t know. In general, anything with Cosmic’s gang always turned out to be weirder than he thought. Knowing she didn’t have a manual GPS on her to track down his location, the teenager ran out the door, took a left, took a right, took a right, went straight ahead, took a left—and slammed into another highly familiar person. He barely flinched at all, but the kid, who was one foot shorter than him and more, went rolling down— Wait, rolling down? --the stairs. Oh, shoot. Rai bolted down the stairs as fast as he could to try to slow the pre-teen’s fall, but he swore the other was gaining momentum every millisecond. Rai was a very fast runner, and somehow, the other welcomed the hard tiled floor with an “Oof” one step before his right boot hit the final one. 'January 4 - "One, Two, Three, Infinity" Part I' (We stan. 2015 writing. Now rewritten without references to the original cringe. And with added philosophies. Woo!) The universe started with nothing, and it would end with nothing. In between its time were pockets of nothing as well, emptiness that would never come to see anything else except for more of itself, and in its space, there was nothing as well, except things that could never breathe, never think for themselves, except continue in a loop as time dragged on, with no meaning except to continue going on, and continue going on…until that one day they came to an end. Perhaps if they were greater, they would have a few moments of glory. If they were less, they would merely be engulfed by the greater, meeting a silent fate. Planets were taken in that way, their existence obliterated until no evidence remained, and still the wrap of time uncoiled itself around everything, disappearing and reappearing again, so slow yet so fast, giving birth to small, inferior things and making them vanish without a trace in front of its eyes. People who had never sought anything, people who had sought to live on happily as their all, and those who had sought the world, for failure or for success, were not to be differentiated. They were remembered, perhaps for a bit, but just like a dead star, there was nothing more to speak of them just as there was nothing more for the star to burn, and so as all’s bright shine they leave will be vanquished to time, their time to shine will still be sacrificed, until all that remains is the Cycle to begin again, if it ever had a beginning, or an end… Nice thoughts to end this night with, he thought. Perhaps he too was stuck within a Cycle that would never be ended. Not if everything continued the way it had been for this decade. Not if nothing changed, except his constant swirling thoughts about a world he never recalled being a part of. How many years had it been since he had been abandoned here, on a star no other living being had survived on? He counted thirteen, with numbers he had no recollection of learning, trapped here with no other desire but to escape. His world, this little world no one else ever even dared to ponder to come to, wasn’t all that sort of hellish place that stories perhaps told. It was only warm to him by now, as compared to the blazing sort of heat he had first felt. But he had found everything that he needed to sustain his life at least, and for him, all that was was just some place he could call home temporarily. Still, his mind wandered. It just wasn’t enough, and he wondered if it ever would be. He was sure there was a home out there that he had once. And colors… He was sure there were more out there, too. More than this confounded haze spread across this world all the time, lingering across everything, like it too was unsure where it belonged. 'January 5 - "One, Two, Three, Infinity" Part II' He remembered the sensation of something wonderfully startling slipping along the sides of his face, and stinging his fingers. There was a hue with that, when he closed his eyes every night. It almost brought more colorful shades every time, but they dried up each time and were gone, letting his vision return to eternal blackness. But, for once, he didn’t let himself slip back into that dark fog, preventing him from seeing. He wanted to see more than that blaring red and searing orange, only ended by blackness. There was more, he believed…wasn’t there? ‘Thirteen’ years ago… A year, a year, a year… Every one he tried to count, another slipped from his mind, until he was lost at which he had begun with and which he had wished to end with, with all those numbers he wasn’t supposed to remember. All those names he remembered…all those names that were not his own. None of them belonged to him; they perhaps belonged to nothing. He always had tried. He had named every rock there, every rock that he did not know was a rock, and every crevice in between. He imagined tiny creatures that could not talk like him but thought about companionship just the same, or perhaps just acted on it, repeating the same routine each day for something more than just the next day. Creatures that never thought about that day they wouldn’t see. Once again, once again, he tried. Every syllable he could try to pronounce from his tongue, not yet dried by the scorching heat. Even those he was sure never existed, he tried. A word for a star that was not this one, where no one was trapped in the infinite, and existence was finite. He did not know how to express it. A beginning, and an end. Both of which he did not know. But still, he went on. The usual sparks danced by, burning his tongue, trying to make him stop. The pain faded into the abyss of his mind, that void someone had once forced upon him, or perhaps he had forced upon himself. One, two, three… The first died, and he tried again. One, two, three… There was something before one, wasn’t there? And at the end he sought, just what was there? In this universe, what was there before the beginning? What would be there in the end? One, two, three stars. When all three of them died out, did they leave their hollow shell in hopes that someone would find them one day, and remember that they had once shined? What was he to leave? What was the evidence that he had shined? Crystallizations of fire gave a deadly dance around the corners of his eyes once again, dissipating into black. What was the star compared to the universe it was in, in between all the blackness, trapped there to repeat its mere cycle as its life slowly took hold? One, two, three minutes. One, two, three hours. One, two, three days, weeks, years, multiplied by the thousand and hundred thousand and million…until they died. He was a star, slowly breathing out his last. No one would be able to see his shine; his energy would fuel no planet. He was pinned to the world he had awoken to, trapped by his desire to escape a world he had no ability to, the gravitation of his life that had chained him here. He could do nothing. Nothing he could do would help him escape the gravitation binding him to this world…except wait. It was almost impossible, he knew. The gravity that bound him, tethering him to fading out, was stronger than him. It was stronger than worlds. It chained worlds to the one surrounding him, his prison. It bound him to a beginning he did not know. But, maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to have an end. Maybe, just maybe, there was stronger star with stronger gravity. He was not all alike to a star, not if he didn’t let go all of his energy for him to burn and shine to nothing, in light of a hope that one day he would be unleashed from a cycle that he did not have to be part of and in light of a hope that he could shine again someday, to finish what he had started from distant times that could not hold him here. The same colors clustered around his vision again as he opened them, and once again, the renegade tried to recall everything he had left to wait for his chance to brighten in glory. One, two, three… 'January 6 - "Bullet in the Air", Part I' “Do you think you’ll have to kill them?” the boy asked, or perhaps, not currently a boy. His voice was a notch lower than his usual, giving it the false mature undertone of adulthood. His mask was slanted on his face—again—giving his voice a slight vibrating quality. It certainly wasn’t a typical question, but that was within typical standards. The Mamba asked the question every day, and practically every hour. This time, though, the A.A. wasn’t completely positive that they knew who the Mamba was talking about. “Why are you not asleep?” was the Apologetic Assassin’s question, polishing a sword. They had expected there to be blood, but there was not any. However, they had returned to the Masked Ones’ compound and sensed a fist-load of drama. Further speculation revealed that the Jackal was ticked, so the A.A. did not report to him. The Mamba sounded tentative. “I tried! The Raven’s so loud!” “The Raven?” “He’s the loudest,” the teenager mumbled boisterously. “Louder than me. The loudest.” From what the A.A. experienced, it wasn’t possible to be louder than the Mamba, but they left it at that. The Mamba added, “There was this weird deity guy at the compound.” That piqued the assassin’s attention. They let their hand rest on the blade for a moment. “Deity?” “Yep!” The Mamba was unconcerned. “Deity. I don’t even know his name—owl lady said Eidolon or something--” Eidolon. Meaning: Specter, a ghost, a phantom. “Were they an ally?” The Mamba paused in his talk to himself. “Ally? What does that mean?” The A.A. didn’t have the patience to explain. “Were the Masked Ones chucking nuclear weapons at this Eidolon?” they asked instead. The Mamba thought back. “…I don’t think so,” he finally said, scratching his chin. “I think Panda had a gun…Raven had his laptop…” So the answer was essentially yes. “Conclusion?” “Umm…he turned into dust!” “The Raven?” “No no!” The Mamba seemed to consider the notion of the Raven turning into dust. His eyes were bright as he whirled, turning on the bed, to the Apologetic Assassin. “It was cool!” “Of course it was.” They turned, half-visible, to the other. “Everything is to you.” The statement was normal for the Mamba, who grinned widely again. “Yeah! We had to scatter it…the Jackal was in a bad mood. His mask broke or something.” So, they were correct. The Jackal was ticked off. “The mask broke? Thought it was enchanted by the Raccoon.” The Black Mamba thought, his expression turning inquisitive underneath the mask. “Righhhtt…I don’t know. It might be because there was a soul that cracked it open.” He brightened. “Like a coconut! Boom! Shattered!” The younger seemed prideful for that simile, but the A.A. did not provide any praise. 'January 7 - "Bullet in the Air", Part II' The deities were taking action. It was obvious. Most of the deities were not so complacent with soul-eating murderers. If any number of the Masked Ones were caught, they would die from the powers of the divine. There was no questioning it. Even if a certain life deity took action, and even if he tried to face all the other deities, the conclusion was there. The deities did not spare those who interrupted their time. They would not offer any chance of escape in the event that they did spare the Masked Ones from certain death. This was very inconvenient, indeed. The Apologetic Assassin took out a gun. That one only had blanks in it. They spun and fired at the Mamba, who scrambled onto the floor just before the supposed bullet would hit his forehead. “Slow,” they remarked, putting it back into the holster. The Masked One was grumbling a complaint under his breath, shaking his head slightly as he crawled back up. “I knew you would do that.” “Then you are slower than I thought.” The Mamba made a protesting noise. “It’s not a real gun, anyways.” “Should start using real ones, if you don’t take such guns seriously.” “No!” he protested. “I don’t like guns very much. You and your tests, A.A.” He said it like “Aaaa”, as per usual. “Why do you do things like that, anyways?” “Should go without saying.” “But I don’t understand,” protested the teenager, slipping his mask off. Instantly, his features melted down into a more boyish frame, wider eyes and wider cheeks. The process was somewhat reviling, and usually, the Mamba would make a larger effort to make sure no one saw it. However, he rarely concealed anything with his guardian. “I’m capable of fighting, A.A. I’m an adult! I can take care of my own training!” “Supposed training is building ‘Legos’ on the South Tower from noon to night. Rest of the time is sleeping.” “Nooo!” the Mamba protested. He paused, pondering the first statement. “Weelll…right. Yeah. But you don’t understand, A.A. You don’t have any ‘hobbies’ like that. I like building. A lot. It’s more important to me than even…looking for soul sources.” The A.A. often thought about that. They didn’t do anything that wasn’t related to killing. There wasn’t anything more important than that to them. But they had a goal. That wouldn’t ever change. They had no intention of changing, lest they could not reach their goal. Sometimes they thought of themselves within another universe, where they didn’t have to do the things they did. Not just themselves—the Mamba, and them. Maybe the Mamba would have had a name. Maybe they didn’t have to train the other to always remain on guard—the type of clairvoyance that wasn’t his natural paranoia. Maybe they would have had a name, and maybe their goal would have been to lessen the Black Mamba’s paranoia, instead of constantly increase it. But that wasn’t possible. It never would be. Not in this universe. 'January 8' He had almost forgotten what disappointment felt like, and the urge was strong, now, the feeling that he was an utter disappointment, nothing more, and much less. Where it had come from, he had no idea; rather, he had a notion of where it could have sourced from. After all, Hades’ tended to do that to someone. There had been so many feelings back then, burned into him day after day and day after day and year after year and decade and century and eon, they ceased to inform their existence. But the fire had never stopped burning, even when the pain stopped. The burn wounds, though they were more ghastly than they appeared now, would never heal. There was no more healthy color to his skin, nor was there vibrant shades cast by light in his hair. Light had abandoned him, and it certainly had no intention of coming back. It was the same light he had sworn to protect. The protector and guardian of the light and justice of the world. For all he knew, his justice was still rotting in one of the hells somewhere, along with that darkness, the proof of light’s desertion. Or perhaps it was sitting like a sack of rotten meat somewhere, perhaps still lingering in the air like some sort of airborne disease. Maybe it was even soaring in the sky, along with the hopes and dreams of a naïve teenager. Wherever it was, screw it. As if on cue, an illusion, a line of smoke, curled past his line of sight, as if mocking him. He flicked a finger, making it disappear. His past could burn along with his flesh and skin. It wasn’t as if he could feel anything, and he cared none for both. “You seem deep in thought,” observed a voice, casual yet restrained, comfortable yet tension-inducing. The voice reminded him of early training days, almost making him want to strive for approval, soft words of encouragement, or…anything, really. He had sworn to never feel these feelings once, and it was a vow he intended to keep true towards all but his savior. Towards them, he felt… Gratitude. Devotion. All he thought he had lost, falling to his doom in desolation, no one else around him, as he plunged towards the abyss of pain and suffering of the Underworld realm. He turned swiftly, kneeling on one knee, as he once had before only a certain goddess. “Only about distracting thoughts, my liege. My apologies for not noticing your arrival earlier.” The other studied him with their heterochromatic eyes, tilting their head at an angle so only the placid side remained visible to him. “Please do not apologize so. My arrival is not so important.” The being known as 666 felt horrified, rather than relieved, at the request. “I cannot do so,” he said, bowing his head quickly, his hair falling by the crescent moon on the side of his face. “I cannot forgive myself for making you feel that way, my lord.” That only made the other sound even more apologetic. “Please do not feel that way.” He ducked his head. “Your Excellence—” “My friend.” The word “friend” itself was enough to stop his speaking. He stopped, watching as the other approached, kneeling down next to him and lightly taking his hand, as if it were a fragile piece of glassware. He needed the one he served to take care of him. A wave of self-loathing appeared. 'January 9' It had not been the happiest of days. Though the province in which I resided was usually sunny—it is known for having more than three hundred sunny days a year—there were times that light came to be too much, and the sky summoned it away, replacing it with a dreary overcast. A few days ago, the sky’s machine guns began to rain bullets down. I had done something wrong that morning, and what it was, I cannot remember, alike to the most things I have done wrong. I do not remember my mom’s reaction to me, either, but in any case, I remember that I did not think I had wronged (I believe I most definitely had wronged, now), and that morning, I stormed out the door in defiance, indignation, and feeling as if I was the one who had been wronged. Immediately, all that greeted me was a monochrome scene; it was as if the world had stopped, and everything weighing in the air was now all upon my shoulders, accusing me of what I had done. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t the most troublesome child, but I was far from a model one. In fact, this had been the year in which I decided to focus on academics instead of being (completely) arrogant about it, so it could be said that perhaps this was an early rebellious phase of mine. However, even if I refused to admit that I had done something wrong, I certainly knew there would be consequences when I got home. The rain had cleared by the time I got home, but there were many puddles along the way, reminding of what had happened. I jumped in a few to delay my arrival at home, but alas, that could barely do anything. I even decided to go the long way, up the street, into the neighborhood, around the outer company parking lot, and around towards the entrance of my house. The fact that I held myself in such a trepidation is now extremely funny to me, but at the time, I was so awash with the indecision that I almost did not notice the paper box on the balcony, something that had never been there before. No one was around, as per usual, not even the neighbor with a molly named Simba. After confirming this, I carefully unlocked the door and stepped inside, expecting to see my mom and a disappointed look at the door; but in fact, it was as if the world outside had stopped my home in time as well. The shades were drawn, and the living room the way it had always been. I found her by instinct a while later, seemingly dozing, because even if I was afraid she was angry at me, it was no excuse to not check that she was fine. She stopped me when I tried to tiptoe away. My mom has always been a beautiful woman, even if she’s endured everything life has thrown at her. Still, beauty can’t hide tiredness, and fatigue shone through her features like a star peeking out behind a universal corner. It didn’t seem to have come from something as trivial as one night’s lack of sleep; it was more as if worry. But, I was young and naïve, and I failed to even recognize that she was tired. When she spoke, her voice did not contain the anger or indignation I had perhaps thought it would have. She only stated in Mandarin Chinese, “Take a look in the balcony.” 'January 10' A flash of the small, folded-up cardboard box drifted to my mind. “Is it that box?” She only slightly smiled in response; it seemed whatever was in it was more important than whatever had been the disagreement that morning. I was relieved, and also didn’t need to be told twice. I ran off swiftly, with something between anxiousness and anticipation beating in my heart. I somehow managed to remember to grab my shoes, and opened the back door. The balcony was an extremely small space, with only pots with dirt and plants past the outside world and subsequent enclosure. The box, as small as it had been when I imagined it was but an illusion, was there. Its top was barely closed. With the cautiousness of a child looking at a wonder he had never seen before, I slowly edged my finger between the opening and nudged it open. Peering back inquisitively at me were two brilliant amber eyes. I had always had the tendency to realize the general picture while seeing the specifics. It was a bird—no, it was a pigeon, with a blemish of white across its wings. Its plumage appeared monochrome at first, but upon further inspection, I could see hints of green and purpure, the colors painting the surface of a calm and peaceful river. I didn’t realize I had forgotten to blink as I looked back at the bird. I was more than surprised. I was astonished. Having dreamt about a surprise puppy from about the age of three, I was awe-struck by the mere presence of such a beautiful living creature nearby our house. “Well?” questioned my mom, who had seemingly risen from her former position inside our home. Her voice shot me back to my senses, that there was more of a reality than the creature inside the box. I quickly closed the lid, as if afraid I would cause the pigeon harm if I attempted to continue holding it open, and got up. My legs ceased to feel anything—most of all my mind could register was that pigeon. “It’s…it’s a pigeon,” I finally said, fumbling with my words. I was somewhere between confusion and more confusion. I was not unhappy, but I needed a response. Even while writing this, I am having trouble recalling just what I was saying at the moment, as all I could think of was the fact that there was an adorable bird in my proximity. I also have extreme difficulty remembering what my mom said, exactly, but she seemingly laughed at my thinking predicament. Heading over, she explained that she had found the pigeon by the mailbox. It had seemingly fallen off of its nest on the roof nearby, and had been there for three days. No one had contacted the main office about it, but when my mom found it, she notified staff members. Obviously, the main office wanted nothing to do with a bird being in the office, so one of my mom’s acquaintances set up the box, some tattered blankets intended for warmth, a pair of gloves, and my mom carried the pigeon home. 'January 11 - Ranking the Gold Saints' I overall hold with the fact of Gold Saint rankings that Deathmask is the weakest Gold Saint. Other rankings are ambiguous depending on point of analysis. Dohko's strength is actually yet to be seen for the most part--even SoG fails to show his strength, and against Andreas, it's a bit ambiguous, and SoG isn't canon. Overall, though, Deathmask, Aphrodite, and Aldebaran are usually said to be the weakest, and then it turns ambiguous. For Milo, he is the fastest Gold Saint, and overall, people make the mistake that his technique needs time to kill. That's untrue. His sense of justice makes him give enemies the opportunity to redeem--14 extremely painful needles before Antares, which will definitely kill an opponent. Canonically in anime, Milo has never killed or completed launched Antares, haha. But in Episode G, it's said to be able to shatter any defense. Anyways, I don't think Milo is as weak as people make him out to be. His defense, speed, and attack capabilities seem much more on-point than Aphrodite's, Aldebaran's, and Deathmask's. Speaking of those three, they mostly lack flexibility. Deathmask's techniques are doomed if the opponent is affiliated with the Underworld. Aphrodite's Bloody Rose means the opponent needs to actually have a heart and blood; he also lacks defense. Aldebaran is too directly offensive, so even if his offense is strong, he is easily exploited. Next often comes Shura and Camus. For Shura, I would say his reaction speed is slower than Camus, or he has more exploits. Against Shaka, he obviously took more injuries than Camus, and was unable to wound Shaka. This shows to me Excalibur lacks in speed. However, one could argue Camus always attacked after Shura did, which means he might have been relying on Shura as a distraction. Camus mostly lacks in offense compared to the Capricorn Saint. He needs his ice to have physical contact with his opponent, and Cloths/mythical armor are very much capable of negating some effects. In fact, Hyoga's Seventh Sense ice powers were negated by Milo's Scorpio armor, suggesting Camus might need to go beyond Absolute Zero to damage a fellow Gold Saint. However, I think it's noteworthy that he was holding back against Hyoga. That means he wasn't using Absolute Zero. It is never stated explicitly whether he has the ability, but since he grasps the concept well, one could assume he does. Besides, he wounded Shaka's knee through the Gold Cloth, suggesting he does, in fact, use Absolute Zero. For me, I would (trying not to be too biased haha, since I'm an Aquarian) rank Camus as overall more strong in battle. He has a speed advantage, reaction advantage, and he seems to use more tactic, which always helps. However, in terms of offense, Shura dominates, and in fact, he's more likely to kill someone quickly. Putting Shura aside for the moment, it's hard to determine Mu and Camus' difference. As Mu vs. Saga, Shura, and Camus was incredibly unfair, as was Shaka vs. The Crying Trio. Mu also had the disadvantage of having to fight Deathmask and Aphrodite earlier, as well as having to face his master. However, I wouldn't say he was at a mental disadvantage, since the Crying Trio were, after all, not truly traitors. So, putting mental liabilities aside, the fight couldn't be judged. Mu had been injured by Deathmask and Aphrodite. The fight against the Crying Trio already unfair, it would be unfair to judge for him. I would say Mu is stronger--he has the strongest telekinesis, and his techniques are extremely balanced in nature. He has a strong defense and a considerably strong offense. His Starlight Extinction (a technique he invented himself) could be replaced by Stardust Revolution if the need arises. He appears to be on par with Shura and Camus in terms of speed, and he has very high intelligence, being extremely gifted. Alright, Aphrodite and Aldebaran. Both lack in defense, and both stomp in offense. Aldebaran's Great Horn is deadly if the opponent can't see through the technique, and Aphrodite's Piranha Rose destroys armor. Bloody Rose is a technique to mull over. Shown in a noncanonical work, the effects could be stopped by pulling the rose out by another person. This could be an extreme disadvantage to Aphrodite if this were true (and admittedly, it seems accurate), if he's fighting against a team. Like I mentioned beforehand, it also wouldn't work against an entity with no heart. It'd, in fact, look like a decoration. Overall, these two lack variation in technique. Considering the Specter who killed Aldebaran (don't care for his name but I'm going to eat him too), Aphrodite might have the advantage. Note that Lost Canvas is not canonical; therefore, Pisces Saints are not stated to have poisonous blood. However, it is stated Pisces Saints have immunity to poison--Royal Demon Rose proves that. This would not be enough to determine difference in power, but it seems to prove Aphrodite has a defensive perk. Besides, his Piranha Roses are enough to destroy armor, which provides him with an offensive advantage. I would argue that Aphrodite is stronger than Aldebaran for this, because defensive capability is the mortal weakness for the both of them. However, in terms of offensive ability, ALdebaran was clearly more effective. Therefore, they are tied. 'January 12 - "The World's Teachings to a Child", Part I' This world is far from perfect, and I guess, I believe that just as I believe that nothing is perfect. I haven’t always been pessimistic-realistic. Or vice versa, I suppose. I am a kid born in the 21st century, a time of change. I started off believing that one could gain friends by simply asking, and that tears would only last a while. Still other beliefs spun around me, trying to get me to change. Someone tried to teach me how to hurt myself. Yet another showed me how it was to hurt others. Slowly but surely, I began to realize that cruel people and war weren’t just something far away—it was happening in this world, in this universe, in this world that is currently believed to be the only one sentient. Before I had noticed, I had calloused myself to the insults hurled at me, and I had yet to ever define what I truly believed in. At a young age, I came across a book, They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children. The book defined a child, forced into a soldier, for a cause he briefly depicted. The scenes could not be more foreign to me. Even though it was a history book, I regarded it as some sort of foreign description of a still more foreign world. There was no way a kid, only years older than myself, could wield a gun, could forget the tiny treasures his now deceased baby sister had deposited tenderly into his pocket, his mind compelled into an imaginary heaven that drugs forced him into as he slaughtered people he had once recognized as his own. A life so short could not have been robbed, the only meaning at the end being the remembrance of her sister, she whom he had forgotten until the end. There was fear emanating into me, not from the book, but from somewhere I did not recognize at the time, and my way of countering that fear was pretending it did not exist. Africa was so far away. I had also encountered a poem. It was named “Strange Fruit”. A poem, describing human bodies hanging from trees, all because they had a different skin color. Now, I had heard of the term “racism”, but I had yet to understand its meaning. To me, all kids were equal, albeit some a bit more annoying than others. None of their differences from me would ever evoke a reaction from me to hurt them. I was far from even understanding the meaning of hurt, not to mention why. It was so far away from me, in time and space. In a way that implies that I did not care, I could say it was the matter of…why should I care? It was so far away from me. I was not the one who was suffering, needless to say that I could not understand the premise of suffering itself. I had never understood it. At the young age of three, while many other kids had been dragged by their parents into faiths such as Judaism and Islam and Christianity, my mind was left to believe what it could. For that, I am grateful, for it has always seemed to me that beliefs imposed upon someone in childhood are not true beliefs, for they have biased the people who have received them since youth, the time when the mind is the most easily twisted. The child soldier was forced into fighting for a cause he did not understand—and I do not understand it, even now. What cause? The viewing that people should die for being different, in identity, in appearance, in personality, in belief? That violence should be promoted when people cannot understand each other in a speech that was foreshortened too long ago? 'January 13 - "Piety"' Lone girl stands silent beneath a scorching sun, Of hatred and passion and all things she’ll do wrong. She stands silent, standing trial before the masses, But justice is nonexistent, only remnants are its carcasses. Sinner looks up shaking, looking up at morning light, But all has fallen silent, the world plotted her plight. Scapegoat stands silent, accepting all she’s done, But all she’s done is nothing, the world will not condone. The angels falling down, shattered with their wings, Demons break their chains, crying out to sing. ~~ Piety. Respect to what we have always believed, what is right. It is raining outside, and it is a blessing to be able to just watch the scene, doing nothing in particular, for it seems I am always doing something in a daily cycle of these fourteen years, of what I am expected to do as a daughter, and later, a woman. War had yeeted fire across the land, only ended once there had been too much death for the religious groups to be able to provide for further battle. The people tried to compensate for their losses, trying again and again when they were only girls. The number of children in my generation has been even larger than the populations before us, all breathing upon the smoky, choking air, walking upon ruined soil. I am constantly told that I, in fact, do not know the challenges that the brave men of our village went through. Yesterday, my mother enunciated her teachings of piety. Most of the talk revolved around my going to school. Many girls in our village do not. It takes hours to get to the school, and in between are mountains. It would be so much harder for anyone to get out there, to cities so many miles away, without roads. Besides, winters are getting worse, and I am not sure I can bear any more; it is very cold here, and my school does not have doors. We are always left shivering, trying to keep the idea of warmth away from our minds. We are told of worlds with ‘adequate housing’ (our teacher is a woman from some far-off country that I do not know), while we have buildings leak the frost in the air through from the wounds of wartime flames, and the wood they are made from were from forests long before anyone still here has lived. The women of the village go out for water each day here, and water is as frigid as the air. My mother thinks that I am not pious. If I were so, I would not waste time going to school. All a woman needs to know how to write is her name. She wishes for me to only think about marrying into a good family, with a better-off young man. That seems to be the best future for all young women; all work we do are at home, after all. But my father has determined that I should continue my schooling, for we are better off than most of the village, as I am an only child but still hardworking. He believes that, when he takes us to the city someday, my knowing more will save face for our family. So I am here wondering about piety, and where respect is towards ourselves. 'January - "The World's Teachings to a Child", Part II' There were only two things on my mind at the time: Home, and…hatred. Both concepts were not very well understood by my mind at all, and even less so in my state of panic. All I knew was that I wanted to go home, and these…people…were keeping me from doing so. I despised them for it, for forcing me to stay here against my will, making this dark, dank house even more of a cage than it already was. Even more, I hated myself for walking right into it in the first place. It was a come-in-and-you-won’t-get-out scenario, and I had walked right into it. I would have fought if I could, but I was small and tiny, and my captors were fully capable adults. I had personal experience with one of them to prove that I was not strong enough. I was seven years younger than what I am now, which makes this experience all the more profound to remember. I knew if I fought, I would fail, and I would drag my mom down into the consequences of whatever they would do to me. She, after all, had come with me, and we were now chained to the situation. I hated them for doing this to us. So I cried; I screamed. With my pathetic eyes, small and having seen more than I could understand, I glared at anyone who tried to near me, anyone who was to try to take me farther into the cage that I already was. My tears had run out, for I had been crying for hours, but all of my fervor and emotion had not run out just yet. I may have sat down on their wretched furniture, but that was only because I knew I needed to conserve energy. My goal was to deafen them, to make them suffer as much as the pain I felt. The suffering of being trapped inside somewhere they wanted me to call home. I had escaped once through deception; there was no chance of that now, and besides, they had actually trusted me back then. At that time, I had said I would return, but did not. Even with their idiocy, there was no possible way that they would ever believe another word I said. There was no consolation left for me. All there was left for me was to drag on the night as long as I could with what I believed to be the power of my voice. But I was small, and children do not have much power. Even that died out at some point, having faded out into nothing. I had no water by which to soothe my hoarse throat. So I sat in defiance, saying nothing to them. My message was made clear: All I have to say towards you is nothing. I was determined that I would not capitulate my will to them, even if that meant I were to spent the night holding a tissue box as a weapon. The subjects of my hatred continued to drift by, malevolent phantoms, and each time I beat whatever they tried to say back with my almighty tissue box. Category:Content (Galaxian) Category:Spicy January Category:Stories